Musings, dreams, thoughtcrimes.

Modi triumphs (but we lose)

Narendra Modi is back in style, winning 117 out of the 182 seats in the Gujarat assembly.

There are many legends about Narendra Modi. One is that he works sixteen hours every day, election or no election. Another claims that he is a loner to the extent that he always eats alone and never entertains any relatives or friends in his house (his mother does not live with him, and he is estranged from his wife).

I do not know if these legends are true but I suspect they are. For Modi is undoubtedly a skillful and ruthless administrator. Even in the icon-dominated landscape of Indian politics his status as a leader with a fanatical cult-following is remarkable. He is also his own man, pushing forward measures he believes in with total zeal and rejecting ones he doesn’t.

Some of the things he doesn’t believe in are secularism, freedom and the rule of law. He is unapologetic about the massacre of Muslims in the 2002 riots. His police – under orders from him – stood and watched while innocent civilians were burnt alive. He has also openly boasted about the “fake encounters” that took place under his rule. Undoubtedly this victory will cement his image in his own mind of one above all laws and answerable to no one but his own ambition.

Modi’s victory may be good for stability and economic progress in Gujarat. Yet all things come at a cost and in this instance the cost is the loss of something essential and irreplaceable- the soul of diversity and tolerance that defines this messy, beautiful country. Moditva will lead to better roads in Gujarat but it will never be the same Gujarat.

9 Responses

What surprises me the most is the arguments I get from my friends in Gujarat… They seem to be saying that things like economic progress and the lack of an alternative are sufficient justification for this guy to be not thrown into prison and instead being elected… I just don’t get it… The case for a planned state sponsored planned genocide doesn’t get any clearer than this…

Why and how is it that those who commit genocide in India always get away with it?

@anshul: ” The case for a planned state sponsored planned genocide ” . There has been no proof yet to prove this allegation. and the rule of land is you are innocent until proven guilty.

@Abhishek: ” He has also openly boasted about the “fake encounters” that took place under his rule ” – Do you have references for this claim? If you are talking about the tehelka sting operation, then it was not Modi in the videos, but some XYZ claiming Modi allowed them to do that.

Please dont get me wrong, in assuming that I consider modi to be completely innocent and shouldnt be blamed for the riots. He bears the blame for sure as he was the CM when the riots happened, and he failed to ensure safety to the people. but i get a feeling that people are putting a big spin on this failure to demonize him more than he should be.

People sing paens of PV Narasimha Rao for his liberal economic polocies and not many realize that it was he who was the home minister when Indira gandhi was assasinated and who did the same thing as Modi to allow the anti sikh pogrom go unabated. is this not hypocrisy my friend ?

@Manoj: I was referring to the Sohrabuddin encounter. He was shot dead by the Gujarat police in 2005, not in an encounter but in a cold-blooded extra-legal step. A few days later his wife also died in mysterious circumstances. The topic created a huge controversy at that time. When the issue was raked up in the pre-election campaigning, Modi , in a rally said:
“What should be done to a man who stored illegal arms and ammunition? You tell me what should have been done to Sohrabuddin?”

People answered, “Kill him, kill him”.

Modi replied, “Well, that is it. Do I have to take Sonia Gandhi’s permission to do this? Hang me if I have done anything wrong.”

@Manoj: One must remember that this is a state sponsored genocide. You typically don’t find much judicially certified evidence for this kind of stuff. That’s one of the characteristics of state sponsored genocide.

Post genocide the perpetrators are in power and get to micro the evidence collection machinery. The judiciary and everyone else can reprimand, complain, cancel visas and bitch as much as they like, nothing will happen till someone who doesn’t like the perpetrator dislodges them from power and restarts evidence collection.

And in cases like Congress’s Sikh genocide or the present one in Gujarat, that’s a day dream. everyone has too much to lose and no one is going to get prosecuted.

My point is that don’t expect a official stamp on any of that evidence anytime soon. This is as much as you will get for many years to come. You have to draw your conclusions from whatever is available and quite a lot of it is available and the case here is pretty straight forward. You can either wait for some kind of official stamp or call it like it is – a genocide. This is as clear as it is going to get for a long time to come.

i think you all havent seen what gujarat is right now. first of all being a gujarati i know that it was not state sponsored genocide ,it was a bullshit claim made my opposition to defame him(though they never succed) but i do agree that he allowed killing of muslims. Now one reply i wanna know do you want modi to wait and have more attacks on gujarati for no reason or put a fear among extrimist and that was happened in gujarat.
I truely hope being an indian we desperately need such leader in every state then only we can stop india from falling but cheap westerners tactics of targeting dalits to use divisive force, terrosim and development of state like North east where christians are fucking around like hell and our government is doing nothing.
Hope you all get it and look for india rather than philosophical thougts and criticizing wonderful leader.
i bet prosperity, peace and stability in gujarat is no where in our country i hope same thing for all states